


Stories of the Second Self: Rising from the Deep

by John_Steiner



Series: Alter Idem [189]
Category: 30 Days of Night, Urban Fantasy - Fandom, Vampires (1998)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:07:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26018518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Summary: Elliot Fineman had reach his limit and wanted to end it all. Throwing himself off a bridge with weights, he was sure that drowning would be his last experience. Except he remained inexplicably conscious. His underwater march to shore would bring shocking revelations about himself.
Series: Alter Idem [189]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618813
Kudos: 1





	Stories of the Second Self: Rising from the Deep

To quote that guy in the superhero movie, "I got low. I didn't see an end."

Except I didn't go the gun route. No, in my town you use the bridge. It's been a thing since they built it in the last century.

Getting the cinder blocks and chains didn't raise eyebrows when I bought them with the last money in my checking account. I drove out to the bridge on a night that was as far-spaced between holidays as possible. I don't like dying on a cliche.

See, when you're really going to do it you make sure to keep up the happy face, the funny tweets, the pleasant talk at work, everything's great, couldn't be better, so that no one thinks of intervention. Getting over the edge of the bridge with two cinder blocks in each arm is hard, but it was a lighter load than what in life carried me to this moment. Without hesitation I stepped off.

Breathing was hard enough when you're not twenty feet underwater, or fifty, or a hundred. That's when the second thoughts kicked in. I knew that it was just my limbic system fighting for life, so you can call this an inner struggle. The prefrontal was sure that death was the only way out, and I was sure death was coming.

I felt my feet hit bottom long after total darkness overtook me. The pressure of water on me from all directions remained even as I felt my last convulsive effort to breathe water. I became still and just drifted in my weighted down stance, enjoying the first sense of silence and peace I'd known for years.

Except I kept feeling it. I wasn't ceasing to exist. Instead of that illusory light at the end that signifies one's vision failing when they die, I noticed things seemed more illuminated. Experimentally, I flexed my fingers and found them still working. Minutes must've gone by and I wasn't dead. I think I lost consciousness, but it felt more like a nap one drifts off into, and the jolted back awake.

Waiting for what seemed like hours, a perverse thought occurred to me. What if life were so cruel it wouldn't let me die? Again, I moved my hands to find that they worked fine, maybe better than fine. Legs too, and that everything oddly felt stronger. I was hoping this wasn't some fucked up origin story that made me Aquaman or worse. Yet, the whole dying thing wasn't happening.

Pissed, I threw off the chains. I never knew how to swim in the first place, so I decided to walk on the bottom. To be honest, I wasn't even sure which way I was walking, but being a bay implies land in most directions, and every step generally felt like it was uphill. The light of day grew in the water, though it was brighter than I thought it should be. Closing in on the shore I felt like my skin was burning, as though I were out in the desert sun.

The tidal ripples distorted my view more, but I thought I saw a lot of people lined on the beach, and some flashing lights of red and blue. Several people waded in toward me, and two of those were wearing wet suits. They carried this long sheet and threw it over me, before each took an arm and helped me to shore.

On that instant I was covered the sunburning sense stopped. I had resigned myself to die, and again to not dying, and so I offered not resistance when these guys guided me to some big security truck. It wasn't an ambulance or fire department rescue truck, which I thought odd, but I had given up on things making sense.

Weird thing was that I was locked into the truck by myself. When the door closed I still had enough light to see by, but I noticed none of the interior lights were on. As the truck started, I felt water in my lungs sloshing around. I leaned forward in my sitting position and heave multiple times until it was all out.

I'm not sure how long the drive lasted, though when the door opened again it was deep in an underground garage. The clamor of people and vehicles was everywhere, and the glare of emergency lights competed with the bright fiery flicker people gave off.

"Elliot Fineman?" someone in a florescent green jacket asked as she approached me. "Is that your name, Elliot Fineman?"

"Yeah." I nodded, and looked around again. "What's all this? It was just a suicide attempt."

"Are you aware of your situation?" she asked, looking at me from a forward tilting expression.

"Supposed to be dead," I sighed, and dropped my dour gaze.

"Do you know how long you were under?" she inquired on.

"Hour or so maybe," I answered.

"Ah, no," she stated and typed something on her tablet before going on, "You've been down there for three days."

"What?" I looked up again with doubt. "Underwater? Nah, that can't be."

"One of your coworkers recognized the symptoms that you were exhibiting and called for help," she revealed, "Just that with everything else going on we weren't sure what to expect when pulling you up."

"What are you talking about?" I searched the Hispanic woman's face unsure why everyone made a big deal of me. "I don't know what you mean by what to expect pulling me up. Why did you bother?"

"Look at me and tell me what you see," the woman said.

"You got this," I started to describe and wave my hand up and down, "weird glow like you're covered in small flames. I can't really describe the color, but-- I'm seeing it on everybody."

"Sir could you raise your hand again and look at it?" she instructed.

I did, and what I saw startled me. That glow I saw on everyone else wasn't coming off me. Just that, I don't know, bluish or violet-like hue of the surroundings along with the regular colors I knew. While soaking wet when put in the truck my hands are mostly dried off, yet they didn't feel warm. Despite that, I felt no urge to shiver.

"Sir, do I have permission to touch you?" she asked.

I nodded, unsure where this was going. She felt my hand first, and then my head. After, she was handed a scanner to read body temperature. She didn't show me, instead she waved other a couple other people who were wearing medical scrubs. They nodded and one pointed at it.

One of the people wearing scrubs approached me and held up his phone while saying, "Sir, are you ready to see yourself in this?"

"Look like shit, I'm sure," I replied, and consigned to the idea. "Why not."

He turned on his cell camera and selected the face-side view before handing me the phone. There's a scene in the movie Jaws, where the old sharking guy talks about sharks having eyes like a doll. That's what struck me first. No sclera, no iris, no pupil, just this glossy black like obsidian. It was both eyes. My skin had turned gray and gaunt, but it was the teeth that freaked me out. Initially, I thought back to the idea of some twisted version of Aquaman.

"Shark teeth?" I breathed, "What the fuck?"

"Do you feel any strange urges?" the scrubs guy asked, "Any desires like thirst or hunger?"

"Yeah, now that I think about it," I answered staring off randomly. "You got, like a power bar or something?"

"I'm afraid that's not an option for you," the woman in the green jacket said with sympathy pulling at her brow, "Sir, you are indeed deceased. You probably expired in the initial minutes after your submersion."

"Is that a soft euphemism for drowning myself?" I retorted.

"I'm not judging your motivations," she clarified and nodded solemnly. "Just that you are medically and, as far as we can tell, biologically no longer living."

"And that keeps me from eating a power bar?" I asked, wondering what exactly not living meant when I'm standing and talking.

"Your needs," she paused, it seemed, to make sure her next words sunk in, "are-- different now."

"Fuck're you sayin'?" Inexplicably, I was getting testy. "Why are my eyes black? Why do I have goddamn shark teeth? What are you saying I am? C'mon! Fucking! Say it!"

"Okay." She firmed up her expression and tone. "Vampires are real and you're one of them. The only thing you can ingest is human biomass in liquid form, i.e. blood. Do you understand what I just told you?"

"What?" I'm not sure if it was light-headedness or just run-of-the-mill losing my mind, but I seemed to waver and sway as though I were back in the water. "You're telling me I'm dead. I'm the living dead. What am I supposed to do with this? Is there a treatment? Can you defibrillate me back to being alive? Tell me. What do I do?"

"Sir, just calm down," she soothed, but subtly waved her other hand. "Please don't make this harder on yourself or others."

"What's harder than dead?" I seethed, still unsteady on my feet, but feeling a rage swell within me.

Several people with guns came over. They didn't draw on me, but I saw hands on the grips of holstered pistols or on rifles slung diagonally on their front. The armed men looked nervous but determined.

"If I'm dead are those guns going to do anything?" I demanded.

"In a capacity they do," the woman warned, "Don't make us test it again. These gentlemen really don't like having to do it."

"There's more?" I stammered, still unsure how vampires could be real, and that somehow included me. "I wasn't bit by anything, you stupid shit, I fucking drowned myself. That's not how it's supposed to work. You get bit, I thought."

"That's the part we don't understand," the woman confessed, "But we know it's real and that's not the only demographic oddity we're having to address," she continued on, her tone shifting back to comforting. "We'll see to your needs, both nutritional and psychological. But we need your permission to help. Will you let us help you?"

Finally, I could drop and so I did into a slumped sitting position on the concrete. Just blankly staring at nothing, I at least realized suicide wasn't the answer. I was pretty sure this was visited onto me as some kind of punishment.

"Fine," I sounded my giving in anew, "Treat me. Please."


End file.
